Decide, Design, Declare and Do – 4 Steps to Tangible Marketing Results

Whether you are a small business owner, a solopreneur, or a large corporation, we all want to see one thing: Tangible Results.  The kind of results that fill our purses, wallets and bank accounts.  This article is not meant to oversimplify a marketing strategy, but to give you 4 steps that will serve as the very core of any successful plan.

I believe one of the biggest hurdles anyone striving for success in their business has to get over is their own limiting beliefs.  Every tangible thing that exists at one point began with an intangible thought or perception.  If you are thinking I’m crazy right now, I ask you this:  “Before you cooked (or ordered) your dinner last night did you think about what you wanted to eat? Did you  smell the aroma or imagine the way it would taste to make your decision?”  Chances are that you did, because we tend to think in images.

Your marketing plan is not much different than making your dinner, it just takes a little habit forming actions to produce the results you are desiring.  Stay with me…  Follow this 4 step plan to see if I am not right.

1.  DECIDE

Before you made your dinner you thought about what you were in the mood for and decided that having this would satisfy your hunger and bring you the pleasure of enjoying a delicious meal.  You knew what you wanted because you thought about it, imagined it, and decided that’s what you would have.

You want your business to thrive.  You know that much.  But, have you taken the time to really think about SPECIFICALLY what your business goals are?  Do you know how much revenue you would like to see per month?  Do you know what you want out of your social media marketing plan, or are you just making noise on Twitter? Can you see your service proposals being accepted and work being performed?  Do you even know what services you want to offer??

Decide what you want from your business.  See it in your mind’s eye and stake your claim on it from within.  A wish is different than a decision.  DECIDE with purpose.

2.  DESIGN

Once you decided what you wanted for dinner you had to do some reasoning and preparation.  Did you have the ingredients necessary to prepare your delectables? Did you plan enough time to prepare the dish and have the required utensils?  You had to design or plan your dinner in order for it to be prepared.  Even with the simplest of meals, you still subconciously weigh the options out.

How much thought have you put into your marketing strategy?  If you’re using social media, have you spent the time creating your perfect mini-bio, designing your blog or profile background?  Have you thought about how you will find followers in your target market?  How, when or whom to engage with?  How to monitor your ROI?    Without a design for getting you from point A to point B, you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed in the sea of social media do-this and do-thatters.   Design your plan, plan your design.  Know where you’re going and how you will get there by sitting down and designing a plan of action.

3.  DECLARE

Once you decided what you wanted for dinner and designed the process for preparing it you told yourself, “I’m going to have ____ for dinner”.  A simple part of the process that is overlooked is the declaration of what we expect.  You decided and then declared this is what it was going to be.  Period…and you had full intention of seeing it out to completion.

In your business your declaration is a reminder of all you stand for, all you are hoping for, and sets the stage for you expectations to become tangible.  If you get the decision and design done then get wishy-washy about your declaration then you are back to square one.  You have not decided.  Say what you want.  Declare it as yours NOW because you are fully expecting this to be reality.  Decide and declare a thing and it will be yours eventually if you do not let go of it.  Call it faith, call it the Law of Attraction, call it the power of your words.  Call it what you want, but it works.  Declare yourself a success.

Definition of a Declaration:  An explicit, formal announcement, either oral or written; assertion of belief or knowledge

4.  DO

The three prior steps accomplish little without any action.  Action without the three prior steps accomplishes little of value.  Massive action combined with Decision, Design, and Declaration will produce massive results.  If you had thought about your dinner but never got up off the couch (or picked up the phone), you could sit there until midnight and dinner is not going to make itself.

Your business is not going to make itself either. You are going to have to DO something.  You are going to have to implement the marketing strategies that you designed.  Declare them till you are blue in the face, but without action your going to see dismal results and come back to me and say this stuff doesn’t work.  In your designing process of your marketing plan be sure to calculate in the action steps that you will need to take, when youT will take them, how often you will evaluate them, and when to move on to the next one.

Begin hardwiring your brain to do the things you need to do by creating effective habits.  Use these four steps to guide yourself and remain on course.  It’s by no means exhaustive, but you will be creating core habits of success.

Feel free to leave your comments and thoughts below.  I love hearing from you!

To Your Success,

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